L'Exécution de Torrijos et de ses compagnons sur la plage de Malaga

This is a monument to Spanish liberalism, ordered by a liberal government. In 1886 the prime minister Sagasta commissioned Antonio Gisbert to paint an event from 1831: the general José María Torrijos and his men, shot without trial on the sand at Málaga for rising against the absolute rule of Ferdinand the Seventh. Gisbert lines the condemned along the beach in the grey morning light, some already fallen, others waiting, hands bound or reaching to one another. He gives them dignity and refuses any drama of the firing squad, which is kept off to the side. Finished in 1888, the picture was bought by royal order and placed in the Prado, where it has hung ever since.